


explain the infinite

by Helendmeyourears



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:35:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26065864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helendmeyourears/pseuds/Helendmeyourears
Summary: This is how it begins: Nicolo asks him when they are in bed, warm in the light of morning and each other’s embrace.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 8
Kudos: 164





	explain the infinite

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Sleeping at Last's "Saturn." I may or may not be in love with the idea of Yusuf, a man of many talents and skills, with astronomy/astrology amongst them

This is how it begins: Nicolo asks him when they are in bed, warm in the light of morning and each other’s embrace.

Yusuf falters. In the quiet stillness of that moment, he feels beneath his palm how Nicolo’s heart thunders and knows, just as he knows what Nicolo is asking, that Nicolo is afraid.

Nicolo, who charges into battle like a man born to inspire the songs of poets, who is not afraid of anyone or anything, asks Yusuf “How did you know?” with shaking hands.

And Yusuf cannot answer. He feels Nicolo’s fear as if it were his own. It chokes him like a wave, washes him out to sea where the weight of defining this thing between them, giving it a name and shape and permission to keep them, would unquestionably sink him.

Nicolo lowers his head, trying to catch Yusuf’s eyes. Yusuf sees a lifeline and takes it. He uses the newly formed distance between them to bring himself up, taking Nicolo’s face in his hands and kissing him with the desperation of a drowning man.

Nicolo kisses him back, and Yusuf makes him forget his question, makes him forget everything but the touch of Yusuf’s hands and the taste of his name falling breathless from Nicolo’s lips.

***

The second time he asks, Yusuf fumbles with the book in his grasp, saving it narrowly from a grave in his breakfast. His head whips up to stare at Nicolo. Nicolo blinks at him innocently, but a small quirk of his lips betrays his smile.

He is, Yusuf notes, strategically positioned across from Yusuf, with their table between them. Does he think that Yusuf will not vault it? Does he not know that Yusuf would vault the moon itself to get to him (and, more importantly, away from his questioning)?

Yusuf places his book down on the counter, carefully. Nicolo’s gaze turns wary in response. He knocks his fist on the table, once, then draws back in his chair, as if to flee.

Yusuf is there before he can, squeezing between the table and Nicolo’s chest to sit in his lap, and while he does not have the room he does have the momentum to knock the table back with a small screech and tinkling of glass.

Yusuf faces Nicolo in triumph, his arms resting on the other man's shoulders. He feels Nicolo's hands flit across his back, holding him there and checking for injury.

Finding none, his eyes shut, turning heavenward in fond exasperation, but that provides Yusuf’s mouth a clear path from the smooth stretch of his neck to the line of his jaw, and Yusuf is never one to turn down an advantage.

***

Nicolo, however, is insistent and so very maddeningly patient, asking over and again, each wave of his questioning fraying Yusuf’s rope to shore that much more.

“How did you know?”

Nicolo fights to get breath into his lungs and his question out of them, because he makes his tenth attempt when they are both crashing down from having finished for the second time that night.

Yusuf groans and tosses his arm over his eyes.

Nicolo di Genova is not like Yusuf. He is not a scholar, an artist, or an astrologer, he cannot read in multiple languages or tell you the direction of Mecca based on the positions of the stars above. But let it never be known that he is a fool.

In the time it takes Yusuf to recover himself, he forms an idea for another way out, and mumbles, tiredly, “That day when we fought all the way to the sea, do you remember?”

There is a sharp intake of breath, and nothing else.

“We had lost our weapons, and you were coming upon me with a rock, so I threw sand in your eyes. You had to crawl to the water on your hands and knees to wash it out. Stick your whole head in the surf. And then, when you turned around-”

Nicolo’s keen, beautiful eyes had glared at him, bloodshot and raw and carrying all the ferocity of a small, pitiful, waterlogged dog with red-eyed tear stain tracks.

He had laughed then, and even now feels a smile tugging at his lips.

Nicolo, however, does not laugh, and his voice, when he speaks, is subdued.

“You have not asked me how I knew. But it was on that day, on that very beach. You could have killed me again, when I was in the water, but you did not. You laughed at me, and I struck you down for it. And when you returned to life, still you did not fight. You...you pointed to the sky, and you named a star. One, then another, and another, sharing their stories with me, their light. You gave me the stars, Yusuf.”

Nicolo’s voice wavers, and Yusuf cannot move, cannot even breathe.

“You told me, ‘I study the sky to understand the blessings Allah provides us. Some of them may always remain a mystery, but it is enough to me that they exist, miracles as they are. And that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.’ You held your hand out to me, and asked me if I wanted to try. And I knew. It took me some time to realize the truth of it, but I knew.”

With that, Nicolo stands from their bed and does not come back, leaving Yusuf feeling colder than he has in a long, long time.

***

The next day, Yusuf goes to where Nicolo sits beneath a tree and settles beside him, leaning his head against the bark. He crosses his arms over his chest, uncrosses them, then crosses again. Nicolo does not even acknowledge his presence.

He takes a tangerine from his bag, peels it and separates one part of it, offering it to Nicolo. Nicolo takes it, still saying nothing. Yusuf tears another part off and takes a deep breath, preparing for the plunge, his stomach twisting as if already seasick.

“Ask me how I knew?”

Nicolo looks down at the ground. He eats his tangerine, chewing slowly, and swallows. Yusuf hands him another, and he takes it.

“How did you know?”

“You asked me to teach you to read Arabic, so that we might better research our condition. I have never taught before, and it was not easy for either of us, but you did not give up, even after I did. I left to take a break, and when I returned there you were, still sitting in your chair. I could not tell you if it was how you leaned your head with one hand on your forehead, or how you scrunched your nose in concentration, or how your other hand followed the page with such care, but in my heart, I knew.”

Yusuf does not look at him. If he looks at him, he may kiss him, and then he will surely be lost to that great sea. He hands Nicolo another slice of the fruit.

“Ask me how I knew?” he says again.

“How did you know?”

“The week before you met my family, you asked me about a hundred questions on how to act around them.”

Nicolo laughs, clear and bright. Yusuf feeds him another wedge.

This is how it begins: one confession for one part of fruit. And this is how it will be for the rest of their lives; the sharing of fruit, and of love, of knowing all the ways they love each other, and how they are as innumerable as the stars.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I love and encourage feedback, and if you like, you can find me on tumblr @astral-kaysani


End file.
